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So what sorts of arrays are people looking at which would use the rule?
I could see like a Gnome Barbarian (I played one) wanting to start with 18 Str 8 Int Cha 10 (with Con, Dex, and Wis being 16, 14, 12 or 14, 14 12 in whatever order.)
I am not sure a Dwarf Bard isn't better off with a 16/14/14/14/10/10 array than whatever it would take to get an 18 in Cha.
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Stats of 6 are now at a triumphant return though, so the hilarity that comes with that design space will be nice.
Nope. It's in the OP.
You can only take a -4 to something that already had a mandatory racial +2. Nothing can start lower than 8.As revealed during the Know Direction Podcast, you can choose to get two additional flaws during character creation.
These flaws must be in different ability scores UNLESS you pick a score that's boosted by your ancestry. So you could play a sickly Dwarf with Con 8.
For these additional flaws, you get an extra boost which can be placed in any ability score that doesn't already get a fixed boost from your ancestry, including the one getting the basic flaw. So you can have a level 1 gnome with strength 18 by placing your free boost and the extra boost into strength.
but couldn't you still take a flaw to something your race has a flaw in already? That would get you to a 6.
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The flaws must be a different ability score unless you pick something boosted. So if you have a +2 Cha, and a -2 Cha. Then yeah, you can toss in another -2 Cha. To get that 8.
But if you just have a -2 Cha, you can't then put in another -2 cha. to get a 6.
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The flaws must be a different ability score unless you pick something boosted. So if you have a +2 Cha, and a -2 Cha. Then yeah, you can toss in another -2 Cha. To get that 8.
But if you just have a -2 Cha, you can't then put in another -2 cha. to get a 6.
Yes, but an Elf for example gets a -2 to Con from the Ancestry. If you then put one of the 2 flaws you get from this option in Con you would have a 6. There was no mention that you couldn't do that in the interview, but it might be in the rules. I haven't seen that yet.
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Yes, but an Elf for example gets a -2 to Con from the Ancestry. If you then put one of the 2 flaws you get from this option in Con you would have a 6. There was no mention that you couldn't do that in the interview, but it might be in the rules. I haven't seen that yet.The flaws must be a different ability score unless you pick something boosted. So if you have a +2 Cha, and a -2 Cha. Then yeah, you can toss in another -2 Cha. To get that 8.
But if you just have a -2 Cha, you can't then put in another -2 cha. to get a 6.
You can't. The rules state it clearly and then include a specific example with a dwarf, stating that the dwarf could put the two additional flaws in Strength and Intelligence, or both in Wisdom, but could not apply either of them to Charisma.
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This seems great in terms of theme, and perfectly acceptable mechanically. I'm a fan. It allows people to play a stupid, or lacking in Wisdom, Barbarian or Fighter, a puny Wizard, and similar concepts, without forcing them to be particular Ancestries or making stat-dumping mandatory in an optimized character (indeed, I suspect I'll literally never stat dump in PF2, since I both like general competence and optimize a fair bit).
Really, this is just a great addition to the game and I'm quite happy with it.
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LOL the return of stat dumping. I like it.To be fair, all it really does is enable certain races to achieve 18's in ability scores they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
LOL I know, but I knew some were going to bemoan stat dumping as soon as they saw it: I was just beating them to the punch. ;)
Also, the no +level to untrained change was a pretty good sign that the "I enjoy having my character crap at some things" crowd is large.
Yep I'm part of that crowd, but they have several abilities/feats to bring that back for those that enjoy learning through osmosis. I think I saw at least 3 that give you 1/2 level to untrained.
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I feel like an 8 is sufficient to roleplay "someone who is deficient in one attribute" (which people are going to want to do) but there's very little to be gained from opening up space for someone to play extremely deficient as another thing on top of that.
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Yep I'm part of that crowd, but they have several abilities/feats to bring that back for those that enjoy learning through osmosis. I think I saw at least 3 that give you 1/2 level to untrained.
I'm only recalling two. Both give you your full level on untrained stuff, though (okay, one gives half level until you hit 7th level and full level thereafter). Unless you're referring to Follow the Expert, which is also full level, and a bit of a different situation, IMO.
But yeah, making this an option is the best of both worlds in some ways. As is stat dumping in this specific manner.
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Yep I'm part of that crowd, but they have several abilities/feats to bring that back for those that enjoy learning through osmosis. I think I saw at least 3 that give you 1/2 level to untrained.I'm only recalling two. Both give you your full level on untrained stuff, though (okay, one gives half level until you hit 7th level and full level thereafter). Unless you're referring to Follow the Expert, which is also full level, and a bit of a different situation, IMO.
But yeah, making this an option is the best of both worlds in some ways. As is stat dumping in this specific manner.
Game designers are greedy for a system that pleases as many of you as we can over time and just generally makes the highest number of fun games in the long run (it is important to distinguish this from responding to every call for a change in the short term, though). So when you guys are split about something, we'll try our best to have it both ways so more of you can be happy. Sometimes it results in no one being quite satisfied, but we try our best to avoid that.
You can't. The rules state it clearly and then include a specific example with a dwarf, stating that the dwarf could put the two additional flaws in Strength and Intelligence, or both in Wisdom, but could not apply either of them to Charisma.Yes, but an Elf for example gets a -2 to Con from the Ancestry. If you then put one of the 2 flaws you get from this option in Con you would have a 6. There was no mention that you couldn't do that in the interview, but it might be in the rules. I haven't seen that yet.The flaws must be a different ability score unless you pick something boosted. So if you have a +2 Cha, and a -2 Cha. Then yeah, you can toss in another -2 Cha. To get that 8.
But if you just have a -2 Cha, you can't then put in another -2 cha. to get a 6.
Perfect. Thanks, Mark!!
I'm only recalling two.
There was a racial... ah heritage one, a rogue one and I was thinking a general or skill one? The one I recall the best is the rogue one which I was pretty sure was 1/2 level and then had another benefit later [it might have been full at a certain point]. The ancestry [I'm going to say 1/2 elf?] I was thinking 1/2 but I'm unsure enough that I'll go along if you're sure it's full.
Do you recall where they were spoiled? I'd have looked them up if I recalled where I'd seen them.
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I'm only recalling two.There was a racial... ah heritage one, a rogue one and I was thinking a general or skill one? The one I recall the best is the rogue one which I was pretty sure was 1/2 level and then had another benefit later [it might have been full at a certain point]. The ancestry [I'm going to say 1/2 elf?] I was thinking 1/2 but I'm unsure enough that I'll go along if you're sure it's full.
Do you recall where they were spoiled? I'd have looked them up if I recalled where I'd seen them.
There's a General Feat one (which is half, then full at 7th), the Pathfinder Society Archetype Dedication (which is just full level), and I didn't see any others (which doesn't mean I might not have missed them...though I have been keeping an eye out).
I have no memory of where they cropped up beyond both being screenshots of pages of the books.
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I'm only recalling two.There was a racial... ah heritage one, a rogue one and I was thinking a general or skill one? The one I recall the best is the rogue one which I was pretty sure was 1/2 level and then had another benefit later [it might have been full at a certain point]. The ancestry [I'm going to say 1/2 elf?] I was thinking 1/2 but I'm unsure enough that I'll go along if you're sure it's full.
Do you recall where they were spoiled? I'd have looked them up if I recalled where I'd seen them.
I'm remembering a Pathfinder archetype(the Absalom regional dedication from Lost Omens), as well as a General feat.
Edit: ninja'd|
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On face value this seems like a cool neat option but I have to agree with those folks here (You know who you are) saying that this is essentially just going to result in nearly ALL non MAD Characters choosing to do this by dumping their Charisma score resulting in half of all PCs starting with 20 in thier primary stat and unless I'm seriously misunderstanding or missing out on a rule that states you cant apply the floating Boost to a stat with 18 in int... I don't see this as a good thing at all.
Did I skim too hard and miss something here or are all Wizards going to start with 20 INT and Barbarians 20 STR now because that's how this tracks to me.
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On face value this seems like a cool neat option but I have to agree with those folks here (You know who you are) saying that this is essentially just going to result in nearly ALL non MAD Characters choosing to do this by dumping their Charisma score resulting in half of all PCs starting with 20 in thier primary stat and unless I'm seriously misunderstanding or missing out on a rule that states you cant apply the floating Boost to a stat with 18 in int... I don't see this as a good thing at all.
Did I skim too hard and miss something here or are all Wizards going to start with 20 INT and Barbarians 20 STR now because that's how this tracks to me.
You skimmed too hard. You can’t use this to add on to an existing ancestry bonus. 18 is still the cap.
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resulting in half of all PCs starting with 20 in thier primary stat
Impossible, stat boosts once you get to 18 are only +1 (like Starfinder) so at most you could have a 19 at level 1. But I'm pretty sure there's language preventing you from putting two bonuses in the same place in the ancestry step (unless one is cancelling out a penalty). Having an 19 to start is half pointless since it leaves you with a 23 at 20th level.
So we can have 18 Cha Dwarves and 18 Str Gnomes, but not 19 (or 20) Wis Dwarves or 19 (or 20) Int Elves.
I mean, humans have two floating stat boosts and can't put them in the same place.
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As I recall, they said that you can't get more than one bonus or one flaw at this stage, and you could only take the -4 dump in one stat if you got an automatic +2 bonus to it -- although you can reduce two stats by -2 to increase one stat by +2.
So there is no way for a starting PC to have an ability score greater than 12 or less than 8 at the Ancestry stage and thus no way to get an ability score over 18 at any phase of creating a 1st level character.
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Is it going to be three? I win if it's three!
EDIT: Nope, four. Close!
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On face value this seems like a cool neat option but I have to agree with those folks here (You know who you are) saying that this is essentially just going to result in nearly ALL non MAD Characters choosing to do this by dumping their Charisma score resulting in half of all PCs starting with 20 in thier primary stat and unless I'm seriously misunderstanding or missing out on a rule that states you cant apply the floating Boost to a stat with 18 in int... I don't see this as a good thing at all.
Did I skim too hard and miss something here or are all Wizards going to start with 20 INT and Barbarians 20 STR now because that's how this tracks to me.
EDIT: NINJA'D
Stat boosts applied to stats that are 18+ are changed to +1's and I believe in the playtest 18 was a hard cap at 1st.
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I get that "people are going to tank their Int and Cha and that's unfortunate"... but if I'm playing a Gnome Barbarian with that Redcap Heritage, isn't that exactly what I should be doing?
This sounds like an option that is easy to house-rule, or really just table agreement not to use the extra min-max option, as the over-all game balance isn't altered too much either way. IMHO the main risk is unique value of flexible Human bonus stats, although other side of coin is it allows Humans access to 3x bonus stats (for one more penalty, but total flexibility of all stats) which can be key for MAD builds.
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I'm pleased that I'll be able to make 8 Wis characters again for Society play.This was my first thought as well. As someone with a dozen bards in organized play each with a maximum Wis of 8, a small part of me died inside when I had to start making them wiser.You didn't have to.
Sometimes, it’s fun to play a character with a major flaw even if you’re not playing an ancestry that automatically starts with one. If you want to reduce any ability scores for your character below what they would normally start at, that’s fine—playing a brutish barbarian with an Intelligence score of 6 or a sickly wizard with a Constitution score of 4 could allow for some fun roleplaying opportunities—but you don’t get any benefit from taking on these voluntary flaws. Beware of making your scores so low that your character can’t keep up with the party!You just didn't get any mechanical benefit for the drop.
It is not clear that this would have been legal for Society play. Including stat flaws as a default option does much to remove that concern.
Whether or not this (overtly optional) Addition Flaw stat method will be PFS legal or not seems an open question.
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Whether or not this (overtly optional) Addition Flaw stat method will be PFS legal or not seems an open question.
It probably will. I see no earthly reason it wouldn't be, given that it's in no way unbalanced, and is being presented primarily as a way to play non-standard Ancestry members of particular Classes.
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It occurs to me that this also further opens up the possibility of Ancestries with bonuses to two physical or two mental stats, since this gives anyone the ability to get bonuses on all three physical stats or all three mental stats if they want. It was doable already but risked making them 'perfect warriors' a bit to much on the physical end of things.
So +Dex, +Con, -Wis (or -Cha) Hobgoblins are a real possibility. As are +Str, +Con, -Int (or -Cha) Orcs. And so on. Which is neat.
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This seems fine and also something I'll probably never use. So sure! Why not.
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I'm very, very happy about this option. The option to customize your stats or accept extra flaws with some kind of mechanical benefit is super important. "Dumping" and "min/maxing" used to describe people taking an 8 instead of a 10 was just badwrongfun policing. "Dumping" should be reserved for 6 or lower. 8 is just a realistic slight handicap.
Being able to unlock more effective class/race combos is also a sweet outcome.
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"Dumping" should be reserved for 6 or lower. 8 is just a realistic slight handicap.
It sounds like 8 will be absolute minimum possible, so I'm not sure of the value of ascribing a meaning to "Dumping" which is not possible to be expressed within rules, people aren't in habit of creating word meanings with absolutely no use value. I doubt the term will disappear because it already has inertia of usage, and can plausibly apply to specific usage of new optional Flaw rule. But it will just be identical level of sub-par as Demihumans who don't use this rule (who don't put other Background etc boosts into raising penalized Stat), so it would cease to have exceptionally bad connotation.
With this rule in place, I wonder if we'll ever get double boost or double flaw races, like the Dragon-kin in SF or the "advanced stat" custom race thing in base PF. Because I've always wanted to make a Witcher race, and if I can get a boost in 3 stats (plus the floating?) and a double flaw in Cha, that'd work out SO well for my FUN! designs...
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With this rule in place, I wonder if we'll ever get double boost or double flaw races, like the Dragon-kin in SF or the "advanced stat" custom race thing in base PF. Because I've always wanted to make a Witcher race, and if I can get a boost in 3 stats (plus the floating?) and a double flaw in Cha, that'd work out SO well for my FUN! designs...
Geralt seems awfully charismatic to me... He makes tons of fast friends and allies, is very intimidating, and gets laid a lot.
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The concept of "dumping" as a pejorative does tend to lead towards stat inflation over the years. Whereas a player who randomly rolled less than 7 for a stat was expected to accept and play it, anyone who deliberately took the minimum value for a stat permitted by point buy rules (7, in PF1) was considered to be "dumping", and many GMs disallowed it. So in later rule sets where the minimum point buy value was 8, setting a value to 8 was considered "dumping", which eventually leads to the minimum score being 10, so that no player character can possibly be below average in anything.
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With this rule in place, I wonder if we'll ever get double boost or double flaw races, like the Dragon-kin in SF or the "advanced stat" custom race thing in base PF. Because I've always wanted to make a Witcher race, and if I can get a boost in 3 stats (plus the floating?) and a double flaw in Cha, that'd work out SO well for my FUN! designs...Geralt seems awfully charismatic to me... He makes tons of fast friends and allies, is very intimidating, and gets laid a lot.
But Witchers in general are seen as outcasts, commonly being shunned from most towns unless there on a contract. Geralt is stated many times in many ways to be an abnormality among his ilk, so he's not to be taken as the average. You look at all the other ones, they're awkward, most people blow them off, and while their very appearance in borderline monstrous, their attempts at scaring people is often plain yells or just a constant rephrasing of "CATCH THIS BLADE SON!", so they're not great at that either, really. And most only bed girls they pay for...
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As long as players are allowed any agency in assigning stats, players will assign stats based on the character they want to play. Min/Maxing, stat dumping etc will always exist in such a system unless all stats are equally valuable to all characters.
The only ways to stop stat dumping, without fundamental changes to the game, like getting rid of stats entirely, would be to go back to rolling 3d6 in order and that is what you get, or allowing a single predefined array that all characters must start with.
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The nice thing about the system discussed in this thread is that there is more of a cost rather than a benefit to reducing your stats below where your ancestry would put them, as you get a net loss of -2 to your overall stat total. That avoids the common PF1 situation of a wizard reducing his strength and charisma scores as low as possible so as to get his intelligence as high as possible. In PF2, there is far less incentive to do that.
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Yeah the "can't get to 18" part was frustrating, people would go on about how you can't play the given ancestry/class combo because you can't max the stat out. Yeah, I know, some crazy people have this idea that you don't need to max your primary stat in order to properly play the class, a pox upon their casual house, I say.
D&D 4th ed tried to have it so you didn’t have to have an 18 in your primary stat. It was so tightly balanced it quickly became clear a 16 just couldn’t cut it.
If this rule bothers people it is easy to say “no dumping more than one stat below 10”. Yes, I know. A dreaded house rule. My old Pathfinder group largely did 25 point buy with no dumping below 10. It is possible to house rule and still have fun.
If it becomes clear to me that PF2e is non-functional below an 18, I’ll likely remove this 2 flaws for 1 perk rule and just hand out 1 free perk.
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But Witchers in general are seen as outcasts, commonly being shunned from most towns unless there on a contract. Geralt is stated many times in many ways to be an abnormality among his ilk, so he's not to be taken as the average. You look at all the other ones, they're awkward, most people blow them off, and while their very appearance in borderline monstrous, their attempts at scaring people is often plain yells or just a constant rephrasing of "CATCH THIS BLADE SON!", so they're not great at that either, really. And most only bed girls they pay for...With this rule in place, I wonder if we'll ever get double boost or double flaw races, like the Dragon-kin in SF or the "advanced stat" custom race thing in base PF. Because I've always wanted to make a Witcher race, and if I can get a boost in 3 stats (plus the floating?) and a double flaw in Cha, that'd work out SO well for my FUN! designs...Geralt seems awfully charismatic to me... He makes tons of fast friends and allies, is very intimidating, and gets laid a lot.
That's fair enough. Although I'm not sure "outcasts have low charisma" really follows in games where tieflings and aberrant sorcerers get charisma boosts. But the other witchers didn't seem nearly as charming.
Also, the no +level to untrained change was a pretty good sign that the "I enjoy having my character crap at some things" crowd is large.Yep I'm part of that crowd, but they have several abilities/feats to bring that back for those that enjoy learning through osmosis. I think I saw at least 3 that give you 1/2 level to untrained.
I’m actually really glad to hear this. It’s something I championed for pretty hard throughout the whole play test despite getting vehement disagreements by other people. Just wanted to make note that I really do appreciate Paizo doing this.
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I’m actually really glad to hear this.Also, the no +level to untrained change was a pretty good sign that the "I enjoy having my character crap at some things" crowd is large.Yep I'm part of that crowd, but they have several abilities/feats to bring that back for those that enjoy learning through osmosis. I think I saw at least 3 that give you 1/2 level to untrained.
I agree. While I wanted the ability to be bad at something [no level added], I'm all for giving people options. It's fun to play those 'jack of all trades' type characters some times, and abilities like this cover that quite nicely.
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If it becomes clear to me that PF2e is non-functional below an 18, I’ll likely remove this 2 flaws for 1 perk rule and just hand out 1 free perk.
I kind of want to add a floating bonus to the class step, just so there is one at every step. It doesn't solve the "no 18 for goblin druids" but I could say something like "you can't put the floating boost in the same score your class increases, unless you have a flaw in that attribute from your ancestry;" that might be clear enough.
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If it becomes clear to me that PF2e is non-functional below an 18, I’ll likely remove this 2 flaws for 1 perk rule and just hand out 1 free perk.I kind of want to add a floating bonus to the class step, just so there is one at every step. It doesn't solve the "no 18 for goblin druids" but I could say something like "you can't put the floating boost in the same score your class increases, unless you have a flaw in that attribute from your ancestry;" that might be clear enough.
You can, but strangely it will be likely to subtract stat versatility somewhat rather than increase it, as it puts more pressure towards double 18s (which aren't possible at all in the current system), so you may want to also add in a hard rule against double 18s to go with the rule you're suggesting about allowing a flaw cancellation if you want to see that floating boost being more of a choice to round out a character.
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It feels kind of weird to me to even call taking an 8 in something 'dumping.' With the way modifiers work an 8 or 9 is literally the bare minimum someone can be below average.
Then again I've heard people complain about 'dump stats' in 5e and you can't even dump a stat in that game.
D&D 4th ed tried to have it so you didn’t have to have an 18 in your primary stat. It was so tightly balanced it quickly became clear a 16 just couldn’t cut it.
Starfinder kind of ended up having a similar problem. The game heavily cuts down on the min-maxy ways you can boost your rolls, which paradoxically made min-maxing your stats even more important because there's no way to ever try to make up for it after the fact if you start down a point in chargen.
Not to say it's impossible, you can survive without an 18 in Starfinder and there are a number of dual 16 builds in 4e that work pretty well, but it's definitely something you can feel.
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Then again I've heard people complain about 'dump stats' in 5e and you can't even dump a stat in that game.
The standard array in 5E before racial mods is 15,14,13,12,10,8; if you do point buy you are allowed one 8. Calling the 8 your "dump stat" seems fair.
My experience with Starfinder, with not starting with an 18, is that it's been perfectly fine.
It the difference of a +1 to some things at some levels. Because of the way increasing stats works after you get above 16 you only increase by 1. So it's more effective, IMO, to start with 16 and have what would have been a lower stat at a higher amount, making more well rounded characters.
I love how it works and I don't think an 18 is at all essential. At best the character that started with an 18 will be +1 better than you at some things, but you character will be more well rounded and general better overall.
Is that a Adventurer's League Rule? 5e's PHB says (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8) is a valid array with Point Buy.
I'm probably misremembering or conflating with a different system (4E?), then. Fun fact: I've used the Standard array for all of my 5E PCs.
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Starfinder kind of ended up having a similar problem. The game heavily cuts down on the min-maxy ways you can boost your rolls, which paradoxically made min-maxing your stats even more important because there's no way to ever try to make up for it after the fact if you start down a point in chargen.
Not to say it's impossible, you can survive without an 18 in Starfinder and there are a number of dual 16 builds in 4e that work pretty well, but it's definitely something you can feel.
This is why I am houseruling all my future SF games to use PF2's stat generation. I'm really kind of hoping they include it as an optional rule in the Char Ops Manual too.